My grand niece, a techie brilliant girl, a mother of two, a girl and a boy, working in a sufficiently high position in a global firm in Dubai, but purely malayalee, rang me up.
Valiammava, I am resigning my job.
Why, what happened? Fed up or quarrelled with my nephew or your office boss?
No no, it is your great grand niece, Shilpa, my one and only daughter and your close friend. By the way,did she talk to you recently?
I lied.
No.
Shilpa is eleven. Unpredictable and intelligent. She
often calls me for giving advices and my nephew, her father is certain that we are of the same age. When he mentioned this to Shilpa once (it was two years back) in my presence, she told him. This bookman grand uncle is 80 only and since 0 has no value, he is 8 and hence I am elder to him.
Now my grand niece said:
Yesterday Shilpa came to me with a sheet of paper, a print-out she had prepared. It was a contract and she asked me to sign. It was a simple one line contract.
She now read it to me.
I hereby agree to give nine minutes of my time every day to my daughter, Shilpa, three minutes each, three times a day, first in the morning before I go to school. three minutes when I return in the afternoon and three minutes before sleep. These nine minutes are for my daughter and I will hear her. I promise that I will not use even a second of it for giving advice or lecture to her or comparing her with others.
See, last night I couldn't sleep. I was really upset. I think she is correct. I, in all my parental wisdom, was seeing her only through my love and not through her eyes. I was engineering her behavior without knowing what she wanted.
To day morning, I started with the first three minutes and heard her. You know, her eyes lighted with an inner joy when I listened to her. I had never experienced nor even thought that such a beautiful heaven was with me and waiting for me to open the door.
I didn't reply or give any advice, but just told her that she can try for a job which allowed her to be at home when her daughter returns from school.
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